The present invention relates to a pneumatic tire, more particularly to a tread pattern capable of improving uneven wear resistance without sacrificing snow/ice performance.
As a technique to reduce tire noise generated by a tread pattern, there has been widely employed a variable pitching method in which lateral grooves positioned at a certain axial position in the tread are circumferentially arranged at nonuniform pitches. In such variable pitched tread pattern, accordingly, domains (g) each defined between the circumferentially adjacent lateral grooves (u) (such domains are usually formed as independent blocks) have several different circumferential lengths or sizes as diagrammatically shown in FIG. 7 for explanation purpose only.
Such variable pitching method can be employed in a tread pattern of all-season tire suitable for driving on wet and dry pavements as well as driving in light snow.
In the all-season tires, usually, in order to improve the snow/ice performance, the above-mentioned domains such as blocks (g) are each provided with a definite number of lateral sipes (s), for example two sipes per one block as shown in FIG. 7.
As a result, there have been a problem such that tread wear concentrates on relatively small domains or blocks. Such uneven wear is especially remarkable in the tread shoulder region.